`Buffer.handle` should be `intptr_t`

[leofang]

@stiepan brought this issue to my attention:

Ah, it's probably a miss then. We made sure Buffer.handle is a intptr_t in the beginning. Most likely it was changed recently to uintptr_t and I failed to capture it. Let me create an issue.

Originally posted by @leofang in #1283 (comment)

[leofang]

v0.4.0:

cuda-python/cuda_core/cuda/core/experimental/_memory.pyx

Line 57 in 84f5aae

intptr_t _ptr

[Andy-Jost]

Do we want to address this issue when implementing resource handles (#1303)? In my work area I already created a small helper function to encapsulate the cast (an example for context handles is shown below). The idea is to overload this so that applying intptr to any handle will cast it to the "correct" integer-like type, which could be signed or unsigned. We could rename it if intptr is not clear enough.

cdef inline uintptr_t intptr(ContextHandle h) nogil:
    """Extract the handle as a uintptr_t integer address.

    This is for use with internal APIs that expect integer addresses.
    """
    return <uintptr_t>(h.get()[0])

[leofang]

I am fine either way, this is not urgent, @Andy-Jost just let me know what you think 🙂

[Andy-Jost]

If it's not urgent, then it will be rolled into my upcoming changes. All we'll need to do is close this issue with the PR.